Reply to Fairness of Common Lottery?

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Reply to "Fairness of Common Lottery?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
[quote]Anyone who even questions the new system did not deal with the old system.

Wrong. I dealt with the old system, got 2 kids into 2 different HRCS's over 2 years because of individual lotteries. We didn't play in the new system but I've followed it closely, and while I do actually support the new system and understand why in the end it is probably more fair and more accurate (in terms of matching), for those who got a crappy random lottery number for the common lottery, you can't really expect them not to wish they had several more shots at getting a better number in at least a few other lotteries.

Basically just pointing out that some of us who did the old system did very well, so you cannot say anyone who questions this system never dealt with the old one. My wish for the current one is that they could do a version of individual school lotteries within the overall common lottery, so for each person applying to 12 schools, you got 12 chances at a great lottery number instead of one chance that affected your matching/waitlist for all 12 schools.

I agree. I think some tweaks could be made to the current common lottery system. Right now if you get a terrible lottery number you have a terrible lottery number on every school waitlist and realistically won't get in anywhere. I like the idea of having individual lotteries within the current lottery system --Still awarding each application only 1 slot -- but you may end up with #2 waitlist at school B and #357 waitlist at school C, etc. [/quote]

By allowing you to rank up to 12 schools, the current algorithm is designed to optimize preferences across the universe of applicants.  Under what you're proposing (separate lotteries where you have an equal chance to win at each school), you could end up #2 at a School B, when what you really want school C. Another family could prefer School B, but end up highly ranked at school C, which you prefer.

[/quote]

So really what the algorithim (sp?) should do is (preferences aside for the moment) run a lottery for everyone who ranked school A #1, then everyone who ranked school B #1, etc.  Then after all the #1 rankings are run, they do another round (starting with whatever number they left off at at the end of the #1 rankings) for those who ranked the school #2.  That way wouldn't you fill up all the most desireable schools only with people who ranked it first?  And order the waitlist in groupings by where others ranked it?  It would make the rankings much more meaningful.  Would that lead to 12 separate lotteries for each school?  That sounds like a technical nightmare but hey, computers are smart and can do just about anything, so isn't it possible?[/quote]

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